Who do you think you are Ed Balls

Katie59

Different times, different people, many Australians are proud that their ancestors been transported and survived.

When to comes to dodgy ancestors Trump is probably one of the most notable, his Grandfather made the family fortune running brothels in the California goldfields, in his case the “dodgy” trait persisted.

Trump’s German grandfather left Germany to avoid the draft. He tried to go back, and live in Germany after he had made his fortune but he had let his nationality slip. It is said that he was refused because of his dubious dealings in America so he had the choice to leave or be deported.

I think it’s important to look at the lives of poorer people in times gone by. They really suffered with loss of children, poor health, starvation wages and criminal working conditions.

Most of my ancestors were agricultural labourers, canal boat people and the odd artisan. Lots of the women in Worcestershire were gloveresses.

Lots of the women in Worcestershire were gloveresses
My Great-Grandma was a glovemaker.

Another 3xGreat-Grandmother was a silk weaver working from home - that sounds rather lovely but it wasn't. The work they produced was lovely but poor conditions, failing eyesight, mechanisation, meant an end to working life quite early and on the last census of her life she was described as 'a pauper'.

In 1829, around 500-600 workers in Nuneaton rose up against the factory overseers. They dragged the foreman Mr Taylor from his house, placed him on a donkey, and pelted him with filth. Ribbon weaving had been a household industry, and there were many weavers in nearby villages who also participated in the protests. On one occasion in 1829, around 6,000 workers from Nuneaton, Bulkington, Shilton and Ryton were involved in a mass protest demanding strike action against unfair prices.

There was a lot of unrest all over the country with the arrival of The Industrial Revolution, not just among the 'Ag Labs' like Ed's 3xGreat-Grandfather.

The Enclosure Acts also ensured the poor were kept in their place, often starving.

During industrialization a lot of the population left or were forced out of rural areas, where at least they could grow food to live. Industrial work was better paid if you had work, if for whatever reason you had no work hunger was common, malnutrition and death of children was also common.

In the third world today, in rural areas you don’t need work, if you can grow food you eat, maybe you can grow extra to trade locally. In urban areas you have to work, life is extremely precarious if you can’t

Actually that was quite the opposite, geographically ...

''The Enclosure Acts also ensured the poor were kept in their place, often starving.''

as their villages next to the Manors were destroyed and razed to the ground, and the families forced to leave and go to the new cities- to become cheap labourers for the new industries.
A perfect technique and timing - for the rich, and a disaster for the poor- becoming enslaved to renting their cottage and their looms, and other implements, on very meagre wages.

The Enclosure Acts didn’t result in the villages being razed to the ground. They resulted in the enclosure of common land which landless villagers had previously relied upon to graze animals, collect firewood so forth.

I can assure you they did. Part of my Degree, Town development and planning.

Kali2

Actually that was quite the opposite, geographically ...

''The Enclosure Acts also ensured the poor were kept in their place, often starving.''

as their villages next to the Manors were destroyed and razed to the ground, and the families forced to leave and go to the new cities- to become cheap labourers for the new industries.
A perfect technique and timing - for the rich, and a disaster for the poor- becoming enslaved to renting their cottage and their looms, and other implements, on very meagre wages.

Point taken!

Mine emigrated.

Germanshepherdsmum

The Enclosure Acts didn’t result in the villages being razed to the ground. They resulted in the enclosure of common land which landless villagers had previously relied upon to graze animals, collect firewood so forth.

as their villages next to the Manors were destroyed and razed to the ground, and the families forced to leave and go to the new cities- to become cheap labourers for the new industries

My great-grandmother's house was still there in the village when we went a few years ago.

I understood that the Enclosure Acts (many of them, over centuries) resulted in common land was seized, fenced off so that the peasants could not graze animals or grow food.

I didn't know that villages were razed to the ground.

The most notable feature of this process is the conversion of the open fields into sheep pasture. This involved the eviction of the tenants who had been engaged in cultivating these fields and the amalgamation of many holdings of arable to form a few large enclosures for sheep.

The earlier tenants had then no choice but to leave for the towns and become cheap, exploited, new industry fodder.

Once the tenants were evicted, village were destroyed. And were re-fashioned by Capibility Brown into the bucolic landscapes we know, with ah-has to keep sheep out of the new natural gardens.

Anniebach

When I found one of my g g grandmothers had registered the
deaths of two small grandchildren in the same week , I cried.

My mother, born 1907, was the first child to live in her family. She was preceded by a boy and girl who both died in 1906. She said it was meningitis, but surely that’s not infectious, and they died within days of each other.

Thank goodness for modern medicine,

Kali, perhaps you would like to to consider the fate of the Scottish and Irish in particular, that were moved forcibly, many thousands were transported into slavery or indentured labour overseas. A lot more were casual or itinerant workers replaced by machinery

The Enclosure Acts came about over centuries.

The Industrial Revolution resulted in people deserting villages for the towns and cities where they could find better paid work in the new factories.
Farming was also mechanised so fewer labourers were needed and villages were left deserted.

There was a lot of resistance to all the modernisation, as shown in the programme.

“I didn't know that villages were razed to the ground.”

There are several “depopulated villages” locally, they were deserted in the 1660s after the Great Plague, after which because of labour shortages mechanization of food production began. Because of large families, a generation later there were again surplus workers farming did not need.

I believe the larger cause of depopulated villages was the Black Death, which is thought to have killed a far larger percentage of the population than later outbreaks of plague.

In the nineteenth century many people left agricultural areas for towns as did some of mine, or (as in the case of a several times great uncle of mine) the armed forces, to escape grinding rural poverty as a result of low wages, high food prices, poor harvests and growing mechanisation. And of course many such as my husband’s ancestors left Ireland to escape the devastating potato famine.

My great uncle’s physical description on his signing up papers told its own story. A later photograph shows the effect of a good diet.

Grandma70s

Anniebach

When I found one of my g g grandmothers had registered the
deaths of two small grandchildren in the same week , I cried.

My mother, born 1907, was the first child to live in her family. She was preceded by a boy and girl who both died in 1906. She said it was meningitis, but surely that’s not infectious, and they died within days of each other.

Thank goodness for modern medicine,

Meningitis can be contagious. Depends on the type.

It’s worth getting copies of their death certificates. The story in my family didn’t tally with the actual cause of death of two children who died close together, which was actually diphtheria. Rife in those days.

In 1809 my many times great grandmother buried her husband and had her only child baptised on the same day. She didn’t remarry. I can’t imagine the hardship in that little family.

I watched it because I really like Ed Balls. He showed his human side during the documentary on the chaos in the care system and you can see he’s genuinely concerned. A refreshing change to see a politician with a heart.

Im away to watch om catch up.

There have been some awful stories in previous programmes of the horrors people suffered in the workhouse. It's worrying now that there seems to be a tendency to go back to the idea of the "Undeserving Poor"
My own grandmother was very lucky to raise all her 10 children in the early years of the 20th century, in spite of having to look after her husband as well after he lost a leg. And of course poverty wasn't confined to this country. DH's grandfather walked from Italy to Wales in the 1900s looking for work.

If you don’t watch it you miss out on a fascinating programme

A small point, one of the researchers was a genealogist called Celia (?) Heritage.